Europe may have given the world foie gras and bullfighting, but the European Union is increasingly keen to be seen setting standards on animal welfare. The Union has not been afraid to upset rich allies, falling out with Canada over seals. Inside the EU, laws have been drawn up to stop hunters blasting falcons out of the skies and to give livestock drinks when they are being trucked across the continent. So the EU should be a force to be reckoned with at a big international meeting on protecting endangered species next month. That might be true on paper, but agreeing on a common voice is often a problem.

Elephants, sharks, bluefin tuna and polar bears will be high on the agenda at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in Doha, Qatar, next month (13-25 March). At the last count, 175 countries, including all EU member states, had signed the convention, which was created to stop plants and animals from being traded into extinction.

In theory, the EU could have a decisive say over controversial issues. With 27 member countries, the Union already has 15% of the vote in Doha.

Peter Pueschel at the International Fund for Animal Welfare, a veteran of CITES conventions, said the EU regularly picks up the votes of up to 20 other countries (typically Europe’s non-EU members). This makes the Union “very strong, very powerful and influential”, he said, although he added that the EU can also be “inflexible” and spend too much time on internal co-ordination.

Finding a common EU line is slow and arduous work. With just six weeks to go, the EU’s position is still a work in progress. But an internal paper drafted by the European Commission highlights five clear priorities: bluefin tuna, red corals, sharks, polar bears and elephants. Governments are supposed to sign off the EU position (and fill in the gaps) “as soon as possible”, according to one official.

But a decision on whether to ban the trade in bluefin tuna is dividing the EU. Last year a majority of member states backed a proposal for a trade ban of the fish, a sushi staple, but six Mediterranean countries blocked the idea. This blocking minority is now beginning to fracture. France announced yesterday (3 February) that it would support a trade ban, but with the caveat that its introduction should be delayed by 18 months. Italy announced last month that it was open to a trade ban.

Also at stake is how far CITES can be extended to other marine creatures, such as sharks. Fish have rarely been added to CITES lists because international agencies and fisheries ministries have preferred not to spread power over sea life too widely. In 2007, an EU plan to put two shark species on the list failed, not least because Europe’s own fisherman play their part in exhausting stocks. Having introduced catch quotas and a plan aimed at protecting sharks, the EU is trying once again, although observers expect resistance from Asian countries, notably Japan.

Ivory trade ban

Fact File

SHARKS

Sharks have suffered from bad publicity for many years, but even these famed movie villains are in need of protection.Porbeagle sharks and their spiny dogfish cousins are both candidates to be added to the CITES list (appendix II). Both are critically endangered in the north-east Atlantic and are vulnerable globally, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) red list. Demand is high for these sharks, which take a long time to grow and mature. EU vessels catch around 100,000 tonnes of sharks and rays each year, most of which is destined for Asia to cater for the rising demand for shark-fin soup, a Chinese delicacy. European consumers, especially those in Italy and Spain, account for more than half of global shark meat imports, according to Oceana, a conservation group. Conservationists would also like the EU to throw its weight behind proposals to protect other shark species.

RED AND PINK CORALS

Corals have been used to make jewellery for thousands of years, but increased harvesting of the slow-growing organisms has had a dramatic effect. Corals – actually tiny animals, not plants – are threatened by trade, but also by the acidification of the oceans that comes with climate change. The stubby, bushy red corals found around the Mediterranean and North African coasts are particularly vulnerable, and have suffered in the past from dredging. In1985-2001, the amount of coral harvested in the Mediterranean fell by 66%, according to IUCN, and many sites are no longer commercially viable. Sweden and the US are backing red and pink corals’ inclusion on the CITES list, although an attempt to add them to the list in 2007 failed to win enough support.

POLAR BEARS

Polar bears are the top predator in the Arctic, but are in decline. Their numbers have fallen by more than 30% in less than half a century and continue to do so as the sea ice melts. The remaining 20,000-25,000 bears are now classed as vulnerable by the IUCN and climate change is by far the biggest threat. According to conservative estimates, the disappearance of the summer sea ice is expected as late as 2100, though more recent data suggest it could disappear as early as 2012. Trade in polar bear parts is limited, but the European Commission favours a total trade ban to reinforce protection for the bears. But Traffic, a wildlife monitoring group, rejects a total trade ban, arguing that trade is not the main threat to the bears’ existence and is not increasing. Traffic also notes that the species is likely to decline by 30% over the next 50 years.

ELEPHANTS

Elephants are surprisingly hard to count. They roam far and wide, making conservationists reluctant to put a tally on their numbers. African elephants are found in 37 countries and are found in dense forests, on open savannahs, grassland, mountain slopes and beaches. Over the last decade their conservation status has improved. The IUCN has downgraded their extinction risk from ‘vulnerable’ to ‘near threatened’, as a result of population growth in southern and eastern Africa. But elephants remain vulnerable to illegal poaching and the disappearance of their habitats. According to the IUCN, elephants in southern African countries are recovering from historic lows, but in eastern Africa, the species has not fully recovered from massive poaching in the 1970s. The outlook for west African elephants is less positive. The African Elephant Coalition says that elephants risk extinction in Sierra Leone and Chad.

BLUEFIN TUNA

Atlantic bluefin tuna has been fished in the Mediterranean for centuries. But now conservationists are warning that the rise in demand for sushi is threatening to drive this muscular fish to extinction. WWF, a conservation group, has said that breeding stocks could disappear by 2012 if no action is taken to stop overfishing. In 2009, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), the group of countries responsible for managing the tuna, agreed to reduce catches to help the stock recover. The problem is that fisherman consistently net catches that are way above the ICCAT’s recommendations and there are no signs that this is changing. A proposal from Monaco for a trade ban has won the support of 22 EU countries, including Germany, the UK and, more recently, France and Italy. The European Commission remains split between its environment department, which favours a ban, and its fisheries department, which is against a ban.

WOLVES, CROCODILES AND BOBCATS...

As well as the five species that are on the EU’s agenda, countries meeting in Doha will consider several dozen others. Kaiser’s spotted newt, an amphibian found in Iran, is a strong candidate for a total trade ban, as there are now fewer than 1,000 of them left in the wild. The Guatemalan spiny-tailed iguana, sought after as a pet and for use in medicines, is also deemed to be critically endangered. Bolivia’s rhinoceros beetle is also a highly sought-after pet and can sell for more than $220 (€160). As well as increasing protection, countries will also vote on whether to loosen restrictions. The US has proposed that the bobcat should be removed from the endangered list, although Traffic, a wildlife monitoring group, says that the fashion world’s increased use of cat furs makes such a move premature. Also to be decided is protection status for the grey wolf, the misfit leaf frog, the Morelet’s crocodile, species of Mexican cacti and Brazilian rosewood.

A decision on whether to ban the trade in bluefin tuna is dividing the EU

The question of lifting a trade ban on ivory is also dividing opinion. The EU has said that it will not take a position until a CITES expert panel publishes a report on African elephants at the end of February. Tanzania and Zambia have proposed easing CITES restrictions on their elephants, while Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe, would like a one-off sale of ivory. But they are running into fierce opposition from the 23 other African countries that make up the African Elephant Coalition.

These countries say that resuming the ivory trade flouts an agreement made at the last CITES conference in 2007 for a nine-year trade moratorium. The coalition is urging the EU to back a moratorium on the ivory trade, not least because it is based on an agreement that Germany helped to broker at the last meeting.

“A single word can send out the wrong signal for those in the illegal trade, that they can start killing as quickly as possible,” said Perez Olindo, a Sudanese government official who speaks on behalf of the coalition.

“The extinction of the African elephant is under way. The question we are asking the decision-makers in Europe is: ‘Do they want to see this happen?’.”

According to one EU negotiator, there would be “strong reluctance” to agree to a one-off sale, noting concerns that it would encourage more poaching. But the official said that it was important to wait and see what the CITES panel report finds before the EU takes a decision.

Olindo also said that all 23 members of the African Elephant Coalition are ready “to support the cause of Europe” on bluefin tuna if the Europeans lend their support to elephants. The irony here is that the EU can muster only 23 out 27 member states to support of a tuna trade ban at the moment.

In theory, the CITES meeting is all about science, but politics will never be extinct.

HOW CITES WORKS

Lions, tigers and bears, as well as many less well-known plants and animals, are controlled under the CITES convention, around 33,000 species in total. The strictest possible measure is a total trade ban (known as appendix 1), with the next option being a partial ban (appendix 2) where trade is permitted only under tightly controlled conditions. Two-thirds of countries have to agree on proposals to include species on the list or move them up or down the lists.